My vacation has turned into a pretty intensive training camp. The first few days were a good mix of workouts and windsurfing but the heat has been turned on and the wind has dried up.

Last weekend and the first part of the week had temps in the mid 80's and it has slowly increased into the triple digits with the high tomorrow expected to be 107 degrees.  Despite all of the heat the training has been great with a focus on the bike. 

So far this trip (since Sunday I've logged 320 miles on the bike and with one more ride scheduled for tomorrow I'm going to top 420 miles.   I've also logged 35 miles since last Saturday with another long run scheduled for Sunday.

Saturday through Monday was either runs or rides followed by some solid windsurfing sessions.  As the tempeatures began to heat up the wind dropped off and the focus became the training. 

Tuesday I tried a new route from Lyle to Goldendale up highway 142 (and back).  The route climbs very gradually for the first 12 miles along the Klickitat river.  Before finally climbing up a steeper grade for 4 miles up to the plateau where the road rolled up and down through wheat farms for the final 12 miles or so.  The ride was beautiful but the road was rough and tough on the body.  On the way back to Lyle I was fighting a serious headwind roaring up the canyon and just wished that I could get done.  It was maybe the hardest 72 miles I've ever ridden (hard on the body).

Wednesday was a good run in the heat of the day.  A negative split cruise but not too fast as the temps were in the upper 90's. 

Yesterday was supposed to be the big day of the week but with temps forecasted in the low 100's.  I didn't swim I just got out on the bike before it got really hot.  I explored another new route east of The Dalles on a road called fifteen Mile Road.  It was a great ride out this canyon the road wound it's way past farms and scrub brush.  I turned around at 15 miles although the road continued to go on for who knows how far.  I was tempted to keep going but was running low on water and though that around each corner would be just a little sign of civilization but not place to refill my bottles and knew I had 20 miles to the nearest refill.  The wildest part of this ride was all of the coyotes I saw.  I saw probably 20 including a pack of about six.  Pretty unusual to see them out in the heat of the day.  I also had a run in with a ground squirrel, well actually I ran over the ground squirrel.  Thankfully I wasn't going too fast otherwise it could been ugly for me.  I don't the the squirrel was any the worse for wear. 

I finished off the day with a short one hour run up the Rowena Grade and back about 3 miles up at a steady 7-8% grade.  Of course this was in the hottest part of the day.  My frozen water bottles were turned into hot water by the end of the run. 

Today was my "off" day but given the forecasted high of 105 degrees I hit the river for a standup paddle board adventure, I did a 90 minute trip from our house in Rowena to the mouth of the Klickitat river and up the river a ways and back, it's a pretty cool way to see the river.

 Two more fairly big days with another long run tomorrow and a 2 hour run on Sunday.  I plan to hit it early.

Hope to post some pictures and possibly some video at the end of the week.